| I mentioned some while ago my feelings about doing FPI resolution over
| the network on a client-server basis. After some discussion last
| weekend with MSQM, I have put my money where my mouth is and done some
| coding, which you can test drive at
|
| http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/PUBLIC
|
| Basically, if you attach an FPI to the end of this, separated by a ?
| in the usual manner, and replacing spaces with underscores, it will try
| to resolve it and send back the file, eg
|
| http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/PUBLIC?-//IETF//DTD_HTML//EN
That worked for me in Spyglass, although the DTD returned was v1.28, whereas
my local copy (from the RFC?) is v 1.30. This is a pretty illustration
of the scope of variability created by generic rather than version-
specific FPIs (and for that matter URNs). This particular problem is
due to the HTML specification, which Peter has implemented correctly,
I think; contrast what happens if you ask for -//Davenport//DTD DocBook//EN
(Davenport has never published an FPI for DocBook without a version
number, if memory serves).
Also note that this URL gives you Peter's version of the file, rather
than the version (if any) published directly by the owner of the owner
identifier. It says "this is public text for which www.ucc.ie is
offering resolution." Peter could implement redirects to, e.g.,
the Davenport site for the DocBook DTD if that seemed to him a more
reliable way to achieve resolution, but he might equally conclude
that maintaining local copies is a superior method.
Now if Peter offered resolution using the SYSTEM keyword, it would be
clearer that that you would be getting his local copy (although he might
fall through to public resolution if he doesn't have a local copy); still,
I can't see that he's doing anything untoward with PUBLIC. What is
interesting here is that the mechanism of resolution and the results
might be the same either way.
| It seems to work OK in Nutscope and Opera, but MSIE refuses to recognisethe
| Content-type of text/plain, which raises the question as to whether we or
| someone needs to type DTDs, char ent files, and fragment files.
|
| Currently it works only for the DTDs etc I have on disk (natch) but if
| you supply a partial FPI, it resolves as much as it can and gives you a
| list of possible completions.
|
| Comments welcomed.
|
| ///Peter
|
|
Regards, Terry